A toy system, and first lesson

I put together a test fixture to play with. I'll post pics and a schematic in a little bit. As I pressed the fire button, I was entirely underwhelmed with the performance. The steel rod, at best, fell out about 3" from the coil. Adding a SCR and a trigger circuit might make a difference, as well as disconnecting the power supply.

I'll test dis-connecting the power supply after charging.

Also, my volt meter, during charging, slowly increased to about 7-8 volts, and stopped there. I expected it to continue increasing to about 12 volts.

Here is the parts list:

Note 1 is a 12 VDC benchtop power supply.
M1 is my trusty voltmeter.
C1 is a 15,000 MFD, 15VAC Capacitor ($3 at Ax-Man!)
The L1 coil is a random coil, also from Ax-Man. About 1" dia, 3" long, I.D of ~3/8"